A Cycle: When I Grow, My Students Grow

The following blog post is the latest in a series written by teachers who are in our Next Generation Instructional Design cohort. These posts describe the process by which these teachers are collaborating to create units that transform teaching and engage students in their own learning.

By: Kari W. Patrick

“I’m sorry.. this is English class right?” a parent quizzed me over the phone.

“Yes, ma’am. The students are making podcasts of their written work and research.” I replied proudly, but also hesitantly. What if she responds negatively? My heart started racing and I began questioning myself “Why am I doing this?”

Thankfully, my self-doubt was unfounded. The supportive reply I received from this inquiring mother helped me to refocus and remember that students creating podcasts is one of the most collaborative and effective strategies I have used in my classroom.

Over the past semester, I co-designed an ELA (English Language Arts) student performance unit with my colleagues at Shelby County High School and fellow cohort teachers of The Fund for Transforming Education’s Next Generation Instructional Design initiative (NGID).  Working with the NGID cohort has been an intellectual and professional venture. It has led me to a level of synergy that I hope all teachers get to experience in the future. When teachers make peer to peer collaboration a priority, we create the expectation that all future educators, as well as students, must embrace collaboration as a way to learn and grow.

In a society that demands professionals work in teams to produce solutions to complex problems, our students need the real world skills of working collaboratively and cohesively enough to produce and publish a permanent project. Through my own professional growth as a member of the NGID cohort, I am developing and honing the same 21st century skills that we want to foster in our students. When I grow, my students grow.

In the unit that our NGID cohort created, our common performance assessment task was for students to create a narrative podcast. At first glance, it’s easy to assume a podcast is next generational solely because of the technology used, but I challenge that assumption. In our planning work, my NGID cohort and I discussed this at length. Why are we using this as our common performance task? What makes it a task worthy of a student’s time? How does it prepare them for the real world?

The use of technology was not what made for next generational learning; instead, the technology fostered critical thinking, increased communication, and created platforms for collaboration to come to the forefront of their learning experience (Framework for 21st Century Learning).  The use of Google Docs, Vocaroo, Audacity and Google Classroom created conditions for students to develop 21st century skills.

Figure 1: Coincidentally, this image represents the workflow of both the student process and the NGID cohort’s work.

Throughout the entire project, technology was an enhancement to the traditional writing process; I saw students peer editing, asking questions, and challenging each other’s thinking at every step. Students gave and received immediate feedback from their peers and I was able to expand on it in real time. For me, the most exciting part of this process was watching students hold each other accountable. Not only did students hold each other to high standards, they were also supportive of the work process. They worked at a level of collaboration that can only be described as next generational.

Just the other night I sat at a parent teacher conference (with the aforementioned parent) and listened to a poignant podcast about police brutality against African-American teenagers. The parent and I looked at each other in awe of how insightfully and critically a team of 15 year olds handled such a sensitive and meaningful topic.  

My professional journey with NGID created an opportunity for students to perform at high levels and they definitely exceeded my expectations. When my students grow, I grow.